


circus peanuts

by dustbear



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: BAMF Phil Coulson, Circus, Clint Feels, Clint Needs a Hug, Gen, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Pheels, badboy!Phil, maria hill is not a jerk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-15 13:10:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustbear/pseuds/dustbear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are always kids that run away to the circus. </p><p>Sometimes, they're from good families, kids from the depths of suburbia, looking for a new, exciting life. The circus is just a grittier, dirtier, summer camp to them, a brief foray into the seedy underbelly of travelling entertainment. They always go home, eventually.</p><p>And, there are kids like Clint. Who have to learn to hit the bullseye every time, and split arrows on cue, who learn to balance on a tightrope blindfolded, who learn not to flinch when the knives hit the plywood only millimeters from their soft flesh. If they learn, they’ll thrive, and they’ll eat, and they’ll sleep, sometimes even with a sturdy roof over their heads.</p><p>Sometimes, much later, some of those kids - from both categories - grow up and become SHIELD agents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AdamantSteve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdamantSteve/gifts).



> Written from a badboy!Phil prompt by AdamantSteve, which is [here](http://adamantsteve.tumblr.com/post/53308848087/bad-boy-phil-fic-prompt), although I sort of ran away with it.
> 
> It was just supposed to be a little drabble, and 8000+ words later...*sigh*

Once, before Clint was Hawkeye, the World’s Greatest Marksman, he was Hawkeye, the World’s Pretty Good Marksman, but He’s Still Just a Kid. Clint is fourteen, his limbs long and loose, his hair too long, his face not too scarred - not yet.

Clint is settling a bet he made with the elephant trainer last week(her name is Josie, and she is a sweetheart), which is why he’s in the elephant cage shoveling dung when the gate clanks open. Rosie, the elephant, waves her trunk, but is otherwise disinterested. “Found you a friend, kid.” Duquesne laughs, shoving another boy in his direction. The boy is shorter, but older than Clint, quite a bit sturdier and tightly muscled. It’s the look in his eyes that throws Clint for a loop - it is outwardly hard and sneering, but those eyes - well, those eyes are awfully kind.

“Let me guess, ran away to join the circus?” Clint laughs. The boy narrows his eyes at him, and does not respond. He just picks up another shovel. When the cage is clean - well, cleaner, it is an elephant’s cage, after all - the boy marches out, and Clint watches him go, cataloguing the new addition. Battered leather jacket, a 1920s bomber, probably a family hand-me-down. A square bulge in the lower left back pocket, that’s a pack of cigarettes. An old, worn Captain America shirt that smells like fabric softener, probably something called Mountain Mist or Alpine Spring, or something stupid like that. Short hair, buzzed close. Light skin - far too light for a circus boy, so he’s only been running for a while. Interesting, Clint thinks, but he doesn’t dwell on it too long. The circus always has kids passing through, some last, like Clint has. Some are good enough to last. Most just disappear, and fade away. Clint doesn’t make friends, because he doesn’t need more people to leave him. He’s had quite enough of that, thank you very much, and he doesn’t try to think about why he hasn’t seen his brother Barney in a year. He pushes the new boy out of his head, and goes to shoot arrows at hay bales.

Two days later, after they’ve moved from Portland to Seattle, he sees the new boy again, although he has to admit that he’s been subtly keeping tabs on him. He listens in to the circus gossip, and he knows that the boy’s name is Phil, which is an awfully boring name for a circus kid, but he isn’t going to call him that until the name is offered to him willingly. Phil is wandering outside, trying to entertain the crowds in line for tickets. He is juggling three balls, and there are three more on the ground. There is a tin can by his feet, and there are some coins in it, and a couple of dollar bills. He’s not bad. Nothing fancy, but his hands are steady and practiced. He lacks showmanship, though. He’s still dressed in jeans, a different t-shirt and the same battered jacket, and if not for the juggling, he’d look like just another audience member, if a bit on the shabby side. Clint picks up a ball from the ground.

“Hey.” Clint says, and when Phil turns around, Clint tosses him the ball. Phil quickly catches it and adds it to his rotation, not pausing his juggling routine. Hmm, not bad at all.

“You’re Hawkeye, the archer.” Phil says.

“What, you thought I was just the pooper scooper?” Clint responds, arrogantly, because if there was a moment to puff up his feathers, now seemed like a pretty good time. “How many can you do?”

“Six.” Phil says, so Clint tosses him another two balls in rapid succession, quietly impressed when Phil doesn’t hesitate at all.

“Can you juggle fruit?”

“Like oranges and shit? Yeah, of course.” Phil frowns.

“You should switch to those, they’ll look cooler and you’ll make more money.” Clint says, nodding at the direction of the pathetically stocked tin can. Phil’s brow furrows, as if he didn’t want the advice.

“Or knives. Knives are pretty cool.” Clint presses, because he knows how to charm an audience and Phil obviously doesn’t. He doesn’t know why he’s even trying to help, but finally, Phil grins, or maybe it’s more of a smirk, Clint isn’t entirely sure, because he’s busy trying to catch the small torrent of balls being launched at him.

“Ow, ow, ow.” Clint yelps, but he’s laughing, and so is Phil, who picks up the six balls back off the ground(Clint had caught none of them).

“You’re gonna be late for your act.” Phil says. “It must take at least twenty minutes to grease yourself into that costume.”

“Ugh, that stupid costume.” Clint groans, but he’s already jogging to the wardrobe trailer, wondering if he can throw his stupid, glittery, makeup on quickly enough to make his first cue. Still, he is pretty sure he hears Phil yell after him - “I like your costume!”

Later in the night, standing on the highest platform in the tent, with a flaming arrow in his hand, Clint glances down, and sees Phil, watching intently. He doesn’t think he’s trying to impress the other boy, but he is still quite satisfied when his shot is absolutely perfect, and Phil claps.

\---

After Clint Barton is Hawkeye, the World’s Greatest Marksman, he goes off and works as Hawkeye, the World’s Angstiest Assassin, and then somehow, improbably, he finds himself as Hawkeye, SHIELD Level 5 Agent, Sniper Specialist. His first handler is killed in action, not Clint’s fault, the handler was too green to be out in the field, and Clint had tried to make up for the mistakes, but in the end, he’d gotten his own ass out of Prague, and didn’t go to the memorial service. His next two handlers resign.

His last handler was Agent Maria Hill, and she was a stone cold badass, and Clint respected her. She let him use a bow in the field, and the research and development arm of SHIELD made him something gorgeous and light and perfect, and it was the first time anyone had ever made anything just for him before. But he doesn’t name her, because she’s technically still SHIELD property. This new life, where he has a warm bed, and three hot meals a day, and unrestricted range access, and he’s not even counting the fact that he draws a ridiculously good salary too - well, he’s just not really sure it’ll last. Agent Hill isn’t friendly, but he doesn’t need friends. She smiled at him once, after an op in Bosnia goes terribly awry, and she'd had to put together a special team just to retrieve him, but Clint thinks that was because he looked improbably pathetic, lying broken and bleeding on a diseased concrete floor. But, she does retrieve him. She also puts him on desk duty for three months, which was inefficient for everyone, because filing is not one of Clint’s stronger points. But, she’d come for him, and Clint starts to trust SHIELD, trust that he’s at least an important enough asset that they wouldn't let him die so easily, which is a feeling he’d never quite anticipated before.

But then, Agent Hill gets hurt in the line of duty, and Clint isn’t there, isn’t there on the rooftop he’s supposed to be on, watching her back. The op was getting called off as too dangerous, the murderer-rapist-trafficker was going to get away, and Clint had a shot - he just needed to move to the next building over, and not keep his sights on Agent Hill for just ninety seconds. Clint is right, he does have the shot, and the murderer-rapist-trafficker goes down hard, and they free two cargo containers full of weeping women and children. But it takes less than ninety seconds for a different sniper to get on a different roof, and that sniper is not a very good one, so Maria Hill only gets a punctured lung, not a head shot.

She is pale and thin in the hospital bed. Clint only visits once, while she is kept unconscious for the doctors to repair the damage. When she wakes up, Clint visits again, but she doesn’t speak to him, an oxygen mask still covering half her face. The betrayal and disappointment in her eyes though, he can’t miss that. It’s ever harder to miss when he receives a copy of her report - delivered electronically, and not by hand, as usual.

“Specialist Barton has trouble following orders.” it says.

\---

It’s been a bad night, one of those nights when Clint doesn’t think he’ll ever be Hawkeye, the World’s Greatest Marksman. Tonight, he’s just Clint Barton, the World’s Greatest Fuckup. It was a complicated trick, to be sure, but he’d done it before, him and Katie. Sweet Katie, perfect Katie, small, brave Katie on the spinning board, getting knives thrown at her and arrows launched at her every single night. Katie was the bravest person he knew.

Clint didn’t even want to do the act. It was Buck’s idea, so Clint had practiced it, and it was fine. But it was too dangerous, it was always too dangerous, and finally Clint had said no - they wouldn’t do the act, not in front of a live audience, not again. So, Buck had beaten him, stomped on his wrist in the dirt behind the lions’ cages, left his arm bruised and bloody and shaking, and threatened him. “Do the act, or you’re out,” Buck had said, and the circus wasn’t family, not any more, not ever, but it was sort of a home, and besides, there was nowhere else to go. He knew his aim would be off. Knew it at the bottom of his heart, knew it in Katie’s wide, terrified, eyes, knew it in Buck’s malicious grin, he knew it.

Josie, the elephant trainer, comes by, and she smells like elephant poop, but Clint doesn’t care, because she’s nice and kind and he wouldn’t trade her presence next to him for a woman that smelled like flowers and cakes. She’s the only person that can find him on days like this, sitting on top of the tiny caravan he’s finally earned. He’ll keep it as long as the audiences pay to see him, as long as he gets a standing ovation every night.

“She’ll be okay,” Josie says, rubbing her large, rough hands against his back. “She has a family. She called home once she was out of surgery. Her dad’s an engineer, you know? Health insurance and all that - she even still had her insurance card, once we retrieved her things. She’ll get physical therapy, and she’ll probably walk again.”

Clint nods. Katie wanted to be a dancer. She’d walk again, sure, but would she ever be able to pirouette again, holding her weight on one pointed toe? The moment between the pull of his bowstring, and the arrow flying, wildly inaccurate, but not inaccurate enough to miss completely - it was a moment too long, and a moment too short.

“I’m actually surprised she stuck with us that long.” Josie says, and Clint knows what she means. There are kids that run away to the circus, kids from good families, kids from the depths of suburbia, looking for a new, exciting life. The circus is just a grittier, dirtier, summer camp to them, a brief foray into the seedy underbelly of travelling entertainment. They always go home, eventually.

And there are kids like Clint. Who have to learn to hit the bullseye every time, and split arrows on cue, who learn to balance on a tightrope blindfolded, who learn not to flinch when the knives hit the plywood only millimeters from their soft flesh. If they learn, they’ll thrive, and they’ll eat, and they’ll sleep, sometimes even with a sturdy roof over their heads. If they don’t, then they truly have nowhere left.

“Chin up, kid.” Josie says. “We move on at dawn, you should get some sleep.”

After Josie leaves, Clint leans back on the caravan’s roof and looks up at the night sky. It is dark, and there are no stars.

“I was looking for you.” A voice says from the ground. Clint looks over the edge. It’s Phil again, the juggling boy, with a burlap sack tossed over his shoulder. His leather jacket looks too large for him, and his hair is growing out already, no longer the short military buzz he was sporting a just a week ago. Clint isn’t sure why, but he gives Phil a hand up, giggling a bit as the other boy scrambles upwards, none too gracefully.

Phil rummages in the sack and pulls out two ice cold cans of beer. He hands one to Clint.

“You look like you need this.” Phil says.

“I’m gonna need much more that that, kiddo.” Clint responds, tracing his fingers in the condensation.

“I’m eighteen. I’m much older than you, _kiddo_. Drink that first, and then I have those tiny airplane bottles of whiskey.” Phil says, setting the bag aside.

“Have you even been on an airplane?” Clint asks, opening the beer.

“Yeah.” Phil answers, distractedly, gulping his beer as if they might get caught. He burps, and laughs.

Clint has never been on an airplane. Clint has never even seen an airport. Clint definitely doesn’t have a passport. Next to him, Phil pulls out a cigarette, lights it and takes a long drag. “Was she your girlfriend?” Phil asks, handing the cigarette over. Clint has never smoked a cigarette before, but he doesn’t want to look uncool, so he takes it, inhales, and promptly coughs his lungs out.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Phil says. It’s true, Katie was not Clint’s girlfriend, although he’d certainly lost his virginity to her, fumbling under the circus bleachers many afternoons ago. It was sweetly awkward, and awkwardly sweet, and Clint did not think he acquitted himself well that night, but Katie never felt sorry for him, and thankfully, never brought it up again.

“I took your advice, you know?” Phil says, not laughing at Clint, which Clint considers a small mercy.

“About juggling fruit?” Clint blurts, the cold night’s air slowly refilling his lungs.

“I tried apples. I doubled my nightly take, but then Rosie the Elephant wandered by and sucked in three of them, trunk to mouth, all three at once. That got a great laugh though...a real crowd pleaser.” Phil says. “And I’ve been watching you. The way you walk, the way you look at people and make them love you? I’m learning.”

“Thanks, I guess.” Clint says. It’s a compliment, he thinks. “Where’d you learn to juggle?”

“I taught myself. I thought I’d run away and join the circus, y’know? Turns out, all I’m good for is ticket line entertaining. I can’t do what you do.”

“Hey, we need ticket line entertainers. Besides, you usually smell better than Dirt the Clown, and I’m sure our paying audience appreciates that.” Clint says. Phil smells like old leather and soap. Clint likes that smell, and not just because the usual scents of the circus are burning kerosene and elephant shit.

They drink more, beer and tiny airplane bottles of whiskey, gazing up at the starless sky. When Phil edges closer, his fingers brushing lightly over Clint’s, Clint realizes that he really wants to know if Phil also tastes like old leather and soap too. He doesn’t - he tastes like cigarettes and whiskey and popcorn, but Clint is no less enthralled by that discovery.


	2. Chapter 2

Clint gets the summons to Agent Coulson’s office after three months of being bounced between handlers, after three months of subpar mission reports, after three months of black marks on his record. He’s considering running away to the circus again. At least there, his fuckups only cripple young girls, and aren’t quite a matter of national security.

He shuffles into Coulson’s office sullenly. He’s heard the rumours of course - heard that Coulson is SHIELD’s top field agent, heard about his prowess with a handgun, heard about the gigantic stick in his ass. Agent Coulson does not acknowledge him, shoulders bent over his desk, still filling out a mission report by hand. Clint isn’t fazed. He knows this game, knows the signal - it means that he’s not that important. Clint already knows that, so he does not clear his throat, does not try to call attention to himself, just stands there, at an approximation of parade rest. He isn’t entirely sure what parade rest actually is, but he knows that Coulson is former military. Coulson might appreciate the effort. Not that Clint wants to look like he’s making an effort.

Finally, the scratch of pen against paper stops, and Coulson raises his head to look at Clint.

“Specialist Barton. Sit down, please.” Coulson says, and Clint blinks, because that voice is deeper and older, but the notes are still the same - and those eyes, he’d know those eyes anywhere - no, it can’t be.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” Clint blurts, before he can stop himself.

“No.” Agent Coulson replies, his face impassive. “We might have been in the cafeteria at the same time.”

Clint can’t stop staring. “Is there a problem, Specialist Barton?”

“No. Not at all. You look like a kid I once knew.” Clint tries to explain.

Coulson raises an eyebrow, his eyes trained on Clint, and Clint realizes that Coulson can’t be Phil. Coulson’s eyes are hard and old and tired. They are blue, and somehow kind, but they are the eyes of a man who has seen awful things, who still works every day to prevent more of that awfulness from slipping out in the world. Phillip the fruit juggler, well, that boy went to Oberlin College, and probably became a bluegrass musician, or something light and silly and unimportant like that.

“You’re nothing like him at all.” Clint continues. He isn’t. The Phil in his memory is full of wicked laughter and bad ideas, and Agent Coulson is just another SHIELD agent.

“Have you finished speaking, Barton?” Coulson says, sternly, and Clint is sure, absolutely certain, that Agent Coulson is not the boy with the battered leather jacket and cigarettes, and not the boy who juggled fruit, because Agent Coulson is already irrepressibly boring.

“I’m sending you to a refugee camp in Kosovo in two days, but it should be a quick in and out mission. Large trafficking ring, corrupt guards, the works.” Coulson says.

“Yes, sir.” Clint nods. He’ll probably fuck that mission up too, but what the hell. His days at SHIELD are numbered anyway, and what’s another angry handler on the way out?

“I’ll need you to requalify on all handguns and sniper rifles.” Coulson says.

“I use a bow, sir.” _Piss off_ , Clint thinks.

“You may use a bow as your primary weapon, however, I need you to requalify on all handguns and sniper rifles.” Coulson repeats, with the exact same intonation in his voice.

“With all due respect, Coulson, I’m more accurate with a bow than any other agent with any other weapon.”

“With all due respect, Specialist Barton, you only have one bow. I’m sending you on a mission with a high chance of a riot breaking out. If you find yourself on the ground, without your security blanket of a favourite weapon, I need to know that you will be as accurate as your records promise you are with any damn weapon you please.”

Clint’s mouth says “Yes, sir,” but Clint’s body storms out, slamming the heavy door behind him.

He does not bother requalifying on handguns and sniper rifles, he goes to Kosovo in two days, and he finds himself in the middle of a camp riot, his bow trampled and disappeared and _fuck_ , Coulson was right.

He “requisitions” a rifle from a camp guard, and fights his way out, led by a calm voice in his ear belonging to Agent Coulson that doesn’t say “I told you so.” He doesn’t need to requalify on handguns and sniper rifles though, his aim is just fine.

He makes it to the safehouse(shitty, smells like rats, leaky roof), and in it is Agent Coulson, surrounded by a pile of monitoring equipment, which surprises Clint, because he didn’t think Coulson was even on the ground. But he’s there, sitting on the floor, in his completely incongruous black suit, with his completely impassive, unworried expression.

“I didn’t have to requalify. My aim’s fine.” Clint says, because he was right, mostly, and he really wants to be right.

  
“I know.” Coulson answers, and there might be the hint of a small smile on the edge of his mouth. “Your backup bow is in the closet, and extraction is in two hours, so I recommend you take a shower, and then let me see to your injuries.”

Clint isn’t sure what to say, so he obeys the commands without question, and takes his shirt off so Coulson can bandage up his aching ribs.

\---

Clint and Phil are smoking behind the elephant caravans again when Buck finds them. Buck is angry, and he’s been drinking. “You’re losing your audience, Clint.” Buck accuses, ignoring Phil’s presence. “They’re bored watching you and your stupid solo act.“

Clint doesn’t want to believe it’s true. His solo act, flaming arrows, and perfect shots, and even that one zipline arrow trick he’s perfected - his act is great.

“You’re gonna do that act again.” Buck threatens, grabbing Clint by the collar. Behind him, Phil inches closer, his cigarette already extinguished, and a small knife already out in his hand.

“What act?” Clint says, but he knows which act Buck is talking about. The dangerous act. The act that made sure that Katie, his little, graceful, perfect Katie, would never dance again. The act which he fucked up, his biggest fuckup in a long string of fuckups. Buck snarls at him, because he damn well knows which act.

“I don’t have a girl.” Clint says, trying to find a way out, any way out at all. “None of the new kids have the training. They’re all spazzy and useless.”

“Use Josie.” Buck says, and Clint’s heart sinks. “She’s too old for her sparkly tights, and the elephant’s probably going to die soon and we don’t have a new one lined up.”

“I can’t.” Clint says. He can’t risk Josie like that. He likes Josie. He can’t point an arrow at Josie, watch her tremble and twitch. Josie is soft and kind and loves elephants.

“Then pack up your shit and leave, kid. I don’t have time for you.” Buck spits tobacco juice into the mud.

“I’ll do it.” Phil says, his knife already stowed away. His hair is floppy, and he grins congenially, and doesn’t look anything like the angry knife wielding boy from ten seconds ago.

Buck laughs, noticing the other boy for the first time. “You’re not exactly a delicate flower of a girl, kiddo.”

“No, I’m not.” Phil agrees. “We’ll make a show out of it. I’ll pretend to be an unruly audience member, a total punk ass kid. I’ll heckle Clint, make it like he’s out to get me. Then he’ll make me volunteer for the act and I’ll act terrified and shit, like I’m gonna piss my pants. The audience will love it, trust me.” His voice is confident, and Clint almost believes that yeah, this could work. It’s a really funny set up, it could work.

Buck considers it for a moment. “Back up.“ he says, and Phil does, lining himself up, straight backed against the caravan. Buck flicks his wrist, and three knives hit the wall, and Clint’s eyes force themselves shut. When he opens them, Phil is grinning, looking down at the knives, which miss his skin by mere millimeters.

“He doesn’t flinch.” Buck says, yanking the knives out of the wood. “Do the act with him.” he says, and marches off.

When the reality sets in, and Phil is smiling at him, his arms stretched languidly over his head, leaning back against the target board, Clint refuses to practice the act. Jesus Christ, what was he thinking? What sort of idiot asshole shoots arrows at his only friend, and oh wow, Phil is his friend. No, wait, Phil is not his friend, because Clint doesn’t have friends, but Phil does all the things that he thinks friends do. He shares booze and cigarettes with him, and they sit on the roof of the caravan and they talk about the circus, about girls, about hopping on a train and going somewhere, anywhere, it doesn’t matter because they’re circus kids, and nothing really matters.

Phil teaches Clint how to juggle(Clint’s up to four balls now; he’s not really a natural), and Clint teaches Phil how to work a crowd, how to misdirect, how to steal a wallet.

So, they’re _friends_ , Clint supposes, and now he’s standing under a filthy circus tent, his arm trembling, pulling his bowstring taut, with an arrow aimed at his friend. The arrow is shaking, he knows it is, and he cannot guarantee that this arrow will hit the target board two millimeters to the left of Phil’s head.

“Hey.” Phil says, leaning back against the board calmly, as if he weren’t about to die.  
“What?” Clint yelps.  
“Clint. Hey.” Phil says, calmly, as if he didn’t have a pointy arrow aimed in the general area of his head.  
“What?” Clint says, softer, his heart still pounding.  
“I trust you.” Phil says.

“I trust you.” Phil says again, as if he needed the words to sink into Clint’s worried posture. Phil’s eyes, unlike Katie’s, are confident and relaxed.

Clint straightens, looks Phil in the eye, exhales and lets go. The arrow hits the board, exactly two millimeters to the left of Phil’s head.

Clint never misses again. They earn a standing ovation that night.

That night, Phil knocks on the small door of Clint’s caravan and declares that he’s moving in, because they’re partners-in-crime now, and besides, he’s tired of sleeping in the horses’ haystacks.

\---

Clint likes his SHIELD quarters. They are small, but he’s made them comfortable. He’d found this candle during a short mission in New Mexico - it smells like rum cake, which makes his room smell like the roof of his circus caravan on the days when the Bearded Lady baked, and the scent drifted out of her ventilation and over the nearby caravans.

There is a knock on his door, and he doesn’t bother to throw pants on before answering it, because he expects that it is Agent Coulson, come to discuss his last mission report, and the man’s seen him naked often enough by now, what with the number of decontamination showers they’ve both had to go through recently. Coulson is a stickler for properly formatted mission reports, much like he is a stickler for just about everything else, and Clint really couldn’t care less about properly formatting mission reports.

It’s not Agent Coulson, it is Agent Hill, who has not only not seen him naked, but has also not seen him in several months. She’d spent a few months recuperating, he knows, and then she’d been promoted away from field work. He’d avoided her, all the same, he doesn’t really need to be reminded that his coworkers almost die when he fucks up, especially since he’s such a fuckup.

“Barton.” she says, pausing at the door, a plain manila folder in her hands.  
“Hill.” Clint blurts, surprised.  
“Can I come in?”  
“Um. One second. Pants.” Clint shuts the door on her, and gets a pair of sweatpants on, before letting her in. He doesn’t know what to say, so it is fortunate that she starts talking. “I came to apologize, Barton.”

“For what? Hell, I’m sorry. I let you get shot.” Clint mumbles.

“Well, that’s correct. But that happens, and I should have trusted your initial instinct to take the bastard down. You had a better view of the entire situation while I was on the ground.”

“Um, thanks? I guess. You still got shot.”

“Yes, Barton, I get that. I’m here to tell you that we’re moving past that, I don’t have any ill feelings towards you, and I’m very glad that you’re getting along well with your new handler.”

Clint sighs.

“You like him, don’t you?” Hill prods.

“Yeah, sure. Giant stick up his ass all the time, but he’s good. I respect him. I trust him.” Clint admits. He does respect Coulson. Coulson is competent, smart, and Clint appreciates that. And if he catches himself staring, slowly tracing the lines of the older man’s face, familiar and unfamiliar and frustrating, no one needs to know.

“Good. He’s our best. And he trusts you.”

Clint laughs a harsh laugh. “That’s a new one. It’s like a nice big opportunity to fuck up again.”

“Barton, stop being so goddamn self pitying, or go down to the Psych department and they’ll help you be less self pitying.” Hill says. Maria Hill has no patience, but no one is sure whether it is an asset or a liability.

“You’re not the first person that’s gotten hurt when I was supposed to have their back, Agent Hill.” Clint admits, and his heart hurts when he thinks about Katie.

“Yeah, I know.” Hill smiles, and hands Clint the folder. ”Turns out, I had a lot of downtime over the past couple months and spent a lot of it with personnel files, getting to know my agents better. Have I mentioned I really like research?”

He holds the folder closed, not quite understanding. Hill sighs. “Katherine Bridges, admitted to Missoula General in 1985, after being shot in the thigh by an arrow, when a circus happened to be passing through town. You’ve been beating yourself up about that for decades, I know. Just open the folder already, Barton.”

Clint opens the folder, but he doesn’t want to know how he’s destroyed Katie’s life, doesn’t want to know about how she’s overcome being a cripple, doesn’t want to know about her goddamn therapy dog or about how brave she is in a wheelchair. But, he makes himself read on because he deserves the punishment - and oh. Oh. _Oh_ , Katie, little Katie, Katie who is Katherine Bridges. Katie is married, with three children, grinning little moppets who look just like her. Katie teaches at a high school...oh, and Clint has to force himself to grip the folder tightly, not to just drop it and cry tears of happy relief, or embarrass himself by hugging Agent Hill.

Katie teaches dance. Katie teaches dance and yoga, to sixteen year old kids. He flips the page. Katie went to college on a dance scholarship; she never was able to do ballet again, but she took up jazz dance, and she got a master’s degree in Dance Education, which Clint didn’t even know was a thing you could get, but Katie did, his small, perfect, wonderful Katie did.

“She could still dance?” Clint gasps.

“She’s good too. Well, I think she’s good. It’s not my thing, but I found a video of her doing this weird mime performance with her students. Was she a clown or something?”

“No, she wasn’t a clown,” Clint laughs, and it’s a real laugh, a real, deep, resonant laugh that Agent Hill chuckles along with.

“Thank you.” Clint says, and he really means it.

“You’re welcome, Barton. You’re a damn good agent, and don’t you forget it.”

“Hey, Hill?” Clint starts, and he doesn’t want to ask Hill for help, especially not after she’s single handedly lifted this ridiculously large weight off his back. But he wants to know, really, really wants to know. “Did you find anything in your research about a kid named Phil? Phillip, probably. I don’t know his last name. He juggled fruit. Was part of my act for a bit.”

“I can help track down medical records if you shot him in the foot or something. But, no. No fruit jugglers. Sorry.” She shrugs.

“No, I never shot him. Thanks, Agent Hill.” Clint says, as Hill nods her goodbye and slips out.

\---

Clint and Phil become Hawkeye, the World’s Greatest Marksman, and Phil. Phil doesn’t want to take a stage name, but it's probably because Clint's suggestions suck. They receive standing ovations every night for two weeks.

They’re stopping in Portland again the next day, where Clint had met Phil the first time, just about a month ago. Phil is strangely quiet and withdrawn, and Clint notices, because his eyesight is perfect, but also because he knows Phil now, knows his moods and his looks and the way his hands fidget when he’s nervous.

“I can’t do the act tonight,” Phil says, shuffling his battered boots together.

“Why the fuck not?” Clint yells, because he’s trying to do his own makeup without getting glitter in his eyes, and really doesn’t need the distraction right now. “Portland is huge, man. Everyone gets a bonus because the show always sells out. You can juggle before the show and you’ll take in so much cash, they love street performers here.”

“I‘m not going to juggle tonight. I just...there’s some people I don’t want to run into in this town, okay?” Phil mumbles, his eyes downcast.

“But you’ll do the act, right? With me?”

“I can’t.” Phil sighs.

“Phil. Come on. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” Phil says. “I trust you.”

“It’ll be fine. Do the act with me. If anyone gives you shit, I’ll be there, okay? I’ll back you up and we’ll kick their ass. Trust me.” Clint promises, and he means every word.

They do the act.

The audience gasps at the right time, and Clint’s aim is even better than perfect, and it is another standing ovation. He grabs Phil’s hand when they raise their arms to even more applause at the curtain call, and after the show, he drags Phil out of the tent. “See, it was great, Phil!” Clint crows, pulling Phil through the crowd and out under the moonlight, “Nothing to worry about!”

The night is calmer out here, slightly distanced to the buzzing of the leaving audience and the heady thrill of a show well done, and Clint lets the night’s performance sink in, lets himself believe that it’s him and Phil against the world. Hawkeye and Phil, the best act in the circus tonight, and all is right in his tiny world. He reaches for Phil again, wants to nuzzle in his soft hair, kiss him roughly, and taste cigarettes and the closest to home he’s ever felt.

“Phil?” A soft woman’s voice says, and it stops Clint in his tracks.

“Phillip?” the voice says again, and it is trembling, almost crying. He can hear Phil’s breath catch next to him, and he can feel Phil turn slowly around. Clint disengages his hand from Phil’s, already loose and yielding in its grasp, and watches Phil walk slowly towards the small woman that belongs to the frail voice, standing by a minivan. He eavesdrops, because he can, and because what the fuck?

“Ma, I’m sorry. I just - I just needed some time.” Phil says, and Clint feels his world fall apart.

“Come home, Phillip, baby. Please, come home.” the woman sobs, clinging around Phil’s neck.

“I’m eighteen, mom.” Phil complains, but there’s no hardness in his voice, and Clint knows, knows in that moment that it’s all over. He forces himself to turn away, forces himself to not intrude in this moment that he is not a part of, will never be a part of.

“Give me a second, ma.” Clint hears Phil say, and he stands, mutely, waiting for Phil to walk to him again.

“You have a mom, you asshole? She calls you Phillip, what a goddamn snooty name, you dickhead.” Clint accuses, which were not the words he expected to fall from his lips, but he’s angry and betrayed. Phil - Phillip - is just another one of those kids, just one of those kids who didn’t need the circus, who played circus like it was summer camp, who thought that maybe a couple months with the filthy peasants was going to be fun.

“Yeah.” Phil says, dumbly. “I have a mom.”

“Why would you join the circus if you had a family? You have a mom! She loves you! Why would you leave that? Fuck, why would you leave this? Don’t you love the circus? Don’t you love -” Clint yells, but he can’t finish his sentence, can’t betray his true emotion because he doesn’t want to deal with all these feelings, all congealed and mixed up in his chest. “Run off to your mom, then,” He spits in the mud, “What are you, eighteen, and you’re going to live at home with your mommy? Is she gonna fold your laundry, cook you dinner?”

“I’m not going to live at home. I got accepted to Oberlin College, and I start in the fall.” Phil answers primly, and that strikes Clint dumb, because that’s even worse.

That means that Phil was always going to leave, had always planned to leave, had always intended to be a college boy, not a circus boy. Not a washed up, stupid, dirty carnie, like Clint. Phil was always meant to be better than a carnie, him and his stupid battered leather jacket and stupid fruit juggling and stupid mom with a stupid minivan.

“You wouldn’t understand, Clint.” Phil mumbles. He’s quite right, Clint doesn’t understand at all.

So, Clint does what he usually does with things he can’t understand, and he punches Phil in the face, hearing the satisfying crack over the bridge of the other boy’s nose. But, Phil returns the favour, and Clint is surprised, because he’d never quite noticed the smooth grace of Phil’s movements or the sinewy, kinetic, strength in his arms. Phil lays Clint out flat in the mud, and when Clint scrambles up to his feet, his nose bleeding, the tail lights of the minivan are already leaving the parking lot.


	3. Chapter 3

Try as he might, Clint simply cannot get under Agent Coulson’s skin, which only makes him want to try harder. It’s hard, because Agent Coulson’s eyes keep on reminding him of Phil’s, the stupid fruit juggling boy, but Agent Coulson is steady and bland and not at all interesting.

Still, he’s finding it difficult to not be a little bit attracted to the man - which is of course, an absolutely awful idea - but Coulson is competent and Clint’s always been attracted to unyielding competence. And good looking, Clint admits, in a sort of benign way. And then Coulson does something, or commands something that is so by-the-book, and he’s just another suit, just another uptight bureaucrat and Clint wonders what he’d ever seen in the man that made him look twice.

Sometimes, on long missions with long waits, which is most of them, Clint sings over the comms. It’s a liberty he takes when he knows Coulson is on the other side, because Coulson has not told him to shut up. So he sings, sings Irish drinking songs, sings dirty folk ditties, sings Somewhere Over the Rainbow, because he just likes that one, okay? Sometimes, he hums instead, and when he hums, he hums circus marches, the tunes instinctual and running through his veins. When he’s far enough away from the action, he matches the marches to the players - the round mobsters get the clown song, the dangerous prostitutes get the waltz that the trapeze artists use.

He hums the Stars and Stripes Forever once, that happy Sousa tune that all circus bands keep in their back pocket, but never part of the regular repertoire. It’s the emergency signal, perhaps the lions got out, perhaps the elephant is dead, perhaps that stupid archer has just gone missing right before his act, and he’s taken the ringmaster’s wallet and five years of cheating tax documents with him. Every circus kid knows that the Stars and Stripes Forever means uh-oh, lay low, stay out of the way.

“Take the shot, Barton.” Coulson commands, but Clint looks at the girl in his crosshairs, and he doesn’t want to take the shot. He’s read the file. Nataliya Romanova, the Black Widow, and she has blood on her hands, but right now, she’s just a girl, and she’s scared and alone. And even though that may just be an act, Clint just doesn’t think it is, and Clint does not want to kill her. He hums the Stars and Stripes Forever now, just one more moment on the comms, listening to Coulson’s calm voice, before SHIELD has to come after him too.

“Coulson.” Clint says.

“Yes?” Coulson responds mildly, and Clint thinks he actually detects a hint of amusement in the man’s voice, which is impossible because Coulson is never amused.

“I can’t.” Clint says, and he knows he is ending his SHIELD career, knows that he's about to be thrown out on his ass, and if he’s lucky, he won’t be found in a ditch with his throat slit in five days. But, he knows he’s not lucky.

“What do you mean you can’t?” Coulson replies, and frankly Clint is impressed, because no other field agent would take that news quite this evenly.

“I can bring her in. I can’t kill her.” Clint says. There is a long pause over the comms, so Clint throws his bow over his shoulder and leaps off the roof, landing ungracefully on the asphalt. He knows that the Widow has noticed him, but he keeps on moving towards her, his hands unencumbered and visible.

“Do what you have to do, Barton.” Coulson says then, his voice as steady as ever.

Clint pauses in his tracks. “Really?” he asks, because really? By-the-book Coulson going off script?

“Clint.” Coulson says, as Clint walks purposefully towards his certain death.

“I trust you.” Coulson says, and those words bring Clint back and rest in his heart like a lead balloon. And that is the first time Coulson has called him “Clint,” but he has no time to consider the balm of those words further, because a deadly red headed assassin girl is pointing a handgun at him.

\---

Clint is in Portland again, but now he’s freshly eighteen, and the star of the show. PETA is protesting outside the circus tent, they’ve been protesting for years, but Rosie the Elephant has finally died, so now they’re down to horses and lions, and Josie retired a year ago, and lives in Florida now. There are new circus acts now, new glitzy spectacles, new feats of human flexibility and daring, and Clint’s circus is becoming a forgotten, declining, vestige of something that hasn’t evolved to keep up with the times. But tonight, in Portland, the crowds are out to see something gritty and dirty and old fashioned, to be tricked by carnies, and smell the filthy dung behind the caravans, and to watch Hawkeye, the World’s Greatest Marksman.

Tonight, standing under the big top, the lights bright against his bare arms, he draws his bow, looks out at the audience and smiles, because he is Hawkeye and he is very, very good at this.

He stands on the highest platform, and he looks down, and he thinks he sees Phil. A bit more buttoned up, in a collared shirt and jeans without holes, but there’s the battered leather jacket, and Clint can conjure up the smell of old leather in his head and lets the dizzy feeling wash over him, and lets his heart beat faster.

Clint watches them gasp as he leaps, held only by a near invisible safety line. He lets go of his bow string, and he hits the flaming targets, as he does, every night. Clint is Hawkeye, the World’s Greatest Marksman, and he is perfect.

Clint waits after the show, waits backstage, expecting to see those bright blue eyes again, come back to say hello. He wanders out to the quickly dispersing crowd, hoping that he didn’t dream that figure that looks like Phil, didn’t dream that Phil might still be looking for him. He hasn’t changed out of his costume, doesn’t want to because he fills it out much better now, feels good in it, feels like he’s made a real person out of a skinny boy with lanky limbs.

No one comes.

That night, Hawkeye leaves the circus.

\---

Agent Coulson is not a friend, has never been, but Clint is in love with him anyway, because Clint makes bad decisions. It’s stupid, because the only reason Clint thinks he keeps on following Coulson around, keeps on volunteering for his ops even though he’s been long cleared to operate without a handler, is because Coulson still reminds him of Phil. It’s stupid because Phil is probably long since married, like Katie, probably settled down on some office job, with 2.5 kids, and probably doesn’t juggle anything any more, except for daycare and PTA meetings.

Tonight, he’s making a bad decision, and he’s avoiding Medical. He’s just completed a solo op, sent a text message to Central confirming the kill, with a promise to report into morning training at the normal time. They won’t look for him until the morning. SHIELD trusts him now, even though he still lies about his injuries. Sometimes Coulson notices, and Clint wants Coulson to notice, so he keeps on avoiding the medics. Tonight, he is bleeding from his left arm, not an enemy, just an unfortunately placed piece of tin roofing. He’s not that concerned, his tetanus shots are up to date. Clint finds himself moving towards to the address that he’d memorized long ago, but never visited before, because he’s not stupid. But tonight, he’s feeling brave and idiotic, and he is drawn there, like a firefly to an electric bug killer, and he’s not sure why.

He feels even stupider, standing on the fire escape outside the window, cataloguing the security system. Of course, it’s a perfectly designed system, and he’s good, but not that good. He goes to the front door, hand raised to knock, even though he knows the place is empty, not in the least because he knows Coulson’s schedule, keeps track of the man’s movements around SHIELD, knows the man has a security briefing at six, and then a dinner appointment at seven(with Nataliya, now Natasha, and she’s just as deadly and wonderful as he’d predicted), and won’t be home before nine.

He raps at the door, which does not open, as expected. He flips open the security cover on the biometric pad outside the door, places his thumb on it, just for kicks. The pad flashes green. “HAWKEYE. ACCESS GRANTED.” it says, and wow, that does something to Clint’s heart. “I trust you,” Coulson had said, once. The door agrees, and unlocks.

There is a first aid kit under the sink in the kitchen, where Clint had anticipated it would be. Clint easily dresses his own wounds, pours alcohol into the ugly gash, bites his own lip as he glues himself shut. He catalogues the clean, sparse furniture in the apartment. The floors are a shiny hardwood, which is fortunate, because he does not want to have to get his blood out of carpet. On a table is a fruit bowl, filled with apples and oranges, and Clint feels a spark of recognition there, but pushes it out of his mind because seriously, it’s just a fruit bowl.

Clint had heard a rumour about Coulson’s obsession with Captain America, but the vintage poster reproductions decorating the apartment are tasteful and none too garish. It’s a bachelor pad, and an examination of the fridge(beer, chinese takeout) confirms that initial assessment.

It is a large framed piece of newspaper that stops Clint in his tracks. It is incongruous in the apartment, a large advertisement for a hair cream, with a mail-in coupon on the bottom, old and yellowed. In Coulson’s apartment, minimalist and sparse and bland, the framed piece of newspaper has too much personality, is too old, is too odd and out of place. Clint squints at the top. Page 32 of the Portland Herald, it says, and the unbidden thought makes Clint’s heart beat faster despite himself.

His hands act quickly, and automatically, pulling the poster frame off the wall. He flips it over on the kitchen table,, and pops the back of the frame out - and there -

Clint is speechless, looking at his own face stare back at him. It’s not really his face, it’s just an illustration of his face, grinning with his bow in hand. The words at the top of the advertisement reads “HAWKEYE: The World’s Greatest Marksman,” and the date and the time and the name of the circus, but all the rest of the details blur in his head because holy shit, it’s Phil, it was always Phil all along.

The door unlocks, and Coulson strides in, stopping abruptly a couple feet from the kitchen table. Coulson’s home early, Clint thinks. But Phil is back too late, he thinks.

“Hello, Specialist Barton. ” Coulson says, looking at the poster, and then the first aid kit, and then at Clint, as undemonstrative as ever. “You should go to Medical.”

“You’re Phil.” Clint says, a note of wonder in his voice.

“Yes, Barton. That is my first name. Did you finally find my personnel file?” Coulson says calmly, but Clint just isn’t going to buy that, not anymore, not ever.

Clint reaches over to the fruit bowl, tosses an apple at Coulson. Coulson catches it easily. Clint smirks, tosses an orange. Coulson catches it with his other hand.

Coulson’s straight face finally falters around the third piece of fruit, when his right hand automatically lobs the apple up in the air to make room for the incoming pear. He continues to rotate the three pieces of fruit, his face mostly still impassive. But the facade is slightly cracked now, and Phil is barely smiling, but he’s smiling.

“You asshole. You motherfucking _asshole_.” Clint swears, and he wants to punch Coulson, grab Phil and hug him because the man is a piece of his past, another piece of the puzzle that somehow turned out okay after all. Jesus fucking christ, it’s _Phil_. The only thing that stops him from tackling the man is the fact that Phil is still, improbably, juggling fruit, so Clint does what is obvious - he tosses three more oranges in Phil’s direction.

“One more.” Phil says, grinning now.

“What?” Clint blurts, still off balance and shocked.

“Throw me one more. I can do seven now.” Phil says, so Clint does, and watches as Phil keeps seven pieces of fruit in the air, then replaces them slowly into the fruit bowl - six in the air, then five, then four and then Clint blinks, and it’s just Phil standing there, holding an apple.

“You knew all along!” Clint accuses, his voice cracking.

“You’ve been Hawkeye for almost three decades, of course I knew. Do you know how hard it was to recruit you to SHIELD?” Phil says, and Clint marvels at Coulson’s adeptness at tradecraft, because his own eyes are fucking perfect, and he can see anything, but even he couldn’t see past that bland Coulson mask, the mask that has just completely fallen away now. Clint looks at Phil, takes in the wry smile and kind blue eyes, and seriously, how could he ever have seen otherwise?

Later, Clint will feel embarrassed about it, but right now, standing next to Phil’s stupid kitchen table, with his stupid Hawkeye poster - and his stupid bowl of juggling fruit, with stupid Phil looking at him with those stupidly kind eyes, well, if there was any time in his life for him to break down sobbing, this was probably a good a time as any. When Phil steps over and hugs him, he realizes that Agent Coulson had never touched him before, because the way his heart skips, the way his muscles relax and melt into the other man, there’s no way he could have avoided knowing, no way at all that Agent Coulson could have been anyone but Phil.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Clint asks, now sprawled out on the floor, somehow having found himself partially in Phil’s lap, Phil’s hand unconsciously stroking through his hair.

“You were mad at me.“ Phil answers, as if Clint’s anger was a terrifying thing worth avoiding.

“I was not mad at you!” Clint denies. He was, he was very mad at Phil, but frankly, it’s been decades, and he’s not one to hold grudges for that long.

“You broke my nose. You were mad at me.” Phil assures, and Clint looks up at Phil, observes the slow curve of the bridge of his nose.

“Oh shit, was this me?” Clint apologizes, traces Phil’s crooked nose with his fingers.

“Well, I’m a SHIELD field agent, it’s been broken a few more times since then. But the first one - yeah, that was you.” Phil replies lightly, and Clint can’t stop staring at Phil’s face, finding himself speechless.

Phil breaks the silence. “I missed you. I didn’t think you’d remember me, honestly. And I didn’t really want to embarrass myself. I was never really a circus kid.”

And that might be true, Phil might never really have been a circus kid. Maybe he really was just another preppy suburban kid, playing carnie in a leather jacket and stolen cigarettes, but for a month, he was Clint’s best friend, and Clint does not have enough friends in the world to dispose of them so easily.

“We - we have a lot to catch up on.” Phil says, and he sounds nervous, and the thought makes Clint laugh. Phil had rarely been nervous, and Agent Coulson certainly never was, but this look on Phil’s face now is scared and hopeful and longing, and aimed precisely at Clint.

“I missed you too,” Clint says, and he thinks that they should catch up a bit too, and he’d like to pick up more or less where they left off. It’s not their first kiss. It’s probably somewhere around their fiftieth, but since it’s been a few decades since the last one, Clint figures it counts.

In the morning, after Clint pulls himself out of bed, disentangling himself from Phil's limbs, he replaces the Hawkeye poster on the wall, right side up this time. 

\---

These are the things that Clint learns about Phil that he loves the most.

One, Phil still has the leather jacket. It fits him better now, and it still smells the same.

Two, he’d actually taken Phil’s virginity, back when he was fourteen and clever and Phil was eighteen and surprisingly naive, and oh boy, that one made him laugh, and made Phil sigh, swearing that he really should never have admitted that.

Three, Phil never really liked cigarettes either, he just smoked them to look cool.

Four, Phil’s mom traded in the minivan for a red Corvette after retirement, and god bless her soul, when she meets Clint for the first time, she doesn’t pretend not to recognize him.

Five, Clint loves the way that Phil is still Agent Coulson at work, stern and bland and professional, but when the door closes behind him, and it’s just the two of them, Agent Coulson drops that mask, and he’s Phil, all soft laughter and crinkly eyes and freckled skin. Clint lives for those moments, the strong fingers through his hair, the gentle whispers, the rough tumble into their sheets, the feel of Phil’s nails along his back.

But, what Clint loves most of all, are the moments where Phil is relaxed and languid on the couch, reading a paper, a book, or a stack of mission reports. If Clint is quiet enough, he might hear Phil start to hum a circus march. And if Clint’s still enough, and does not interrupt, eventually, Phil will reach out and grab an apple, or an orange, or whatever Clint has conveniently placed nearby, and before long, Phil’s left hand will be juggling two pieces of fruit.

And then, Clint will lob a pear at Phil, which Phil will automatically pluck out of the air, even if he has to drop a whole stack of mission reports, or his tablet, or his coffee, to do so, and he’ll keep those three pieces of fruit in the air, while glowering angrily at Clint.

“Asshole.” Phil will say, because Clint will be curled up laughing hysterically on the floor by now. Clint doesn’t mind when the apple bounces off his head.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! You can always throw me new prompts on Tumblr([dustjane.tumblr.com](http://dustjane.tumblr.com/)).


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